Tuesday, January 28, 2014

The war in Syria is integral to the Sunni-Shi'ite struggle
for regional and Islamic supremacy. The Sunnis may have reigned supreme for well
over a millennium, but the US-led war in Iraq (commencing 2003) changed the
balance of power, facilitating a Shi'ite ascendancy.

Iraq's move into the Iranian orbit completed the
"Shi'ite Crescent": the Iran-Iraq-Syria-Hezballah strategic alliance that
enables Iranian influence to stretch all the way from Tehran to Israel's
northern border and the Mediterranean Sea.

Subsequently, US influence in the Middle East declined --
plummeting after the financial crisis of Aug-Sept 2008 -- leaving US-allied
Sunni Arab dictators increasingly isolated and vulnerable. Initially a movement
to protest corruption and poor living standards, the "Arab Spring"
was quickly hijacked by the region's most politically organised group: the Muslim
Brotherhood (MB).

The Obama administration's decision to ditch its allies in
favour of the MB -- believing that support for Islamic "democracy"
would put them "on the right side of history" -- brought angst to
Riyadh, but joy to Tehran. For while Egypt's Mubarak had been aligned with the Sunni
axis -- which consists of Sunni Arab US-backed monarchs and dictators that have
signed peace treaties with Israel and host US military bases -- Iranian axis which comprises regimes that resist US
hegemony and are belligerent towards Israel.[1]

While the Iranian regime was delighted by the rise of the
MB, talk of a restoration of Ottoman and Saudi hegemony gave them pause for
concern. Though Syria is a Sunni Arab-majority state, it has been ruled by a
coalition of minorities since WWII.[2] In
1973 a Lebanese Shia cleric issued fatwa declaring the Alawi to be a sect of
Shia Islam (rather than a heretical movement). Alliances with Iran and
Hezballah provide the vulnerable Assad regime with protection from Sunni
aggression. Conversely, Iran and Hezballah see Syria as their most strategic
asset; they were never going to let Syria fall.[3]

On 5 June 2013, the situation in Syria pivoted dramatically when
the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) -- supported by fighters from Hezballah (Lebanon), Iraq
and Iran -- liberated the strategic city of Al-Qusayr near the border with
Lebanon. Whoever controls Al-Qusayr controls supply lines into Homs and the
centre. The SAA had effectively changed the balance of power on the ground.

On 21 August 2013, Sarin gas was released in Ghouta, on the
outskirts of Damascus, just as the SAA's Operation Shield of the Capital was
making great and highly strategic gains against rebels and CIA-trained Arab
units there. There is absolutely no doubt that the rebels released the Sarin
gas with the aim of triggering a US-NATO intervention on their behalf.

However, as the Obama administration realised, US air
strikes on Syria would totally ruin President Obama much-heralded detente with new
Iranian president Hassan Rouhani. So the US backed off, abandoning the rebels
to their fate. Rebel forces are now totally demoralised.

In early October, the SAA broke through the rebel
encirclement of Aleppo, opening the road between Damascus and the northern
city, enabling supply and liberating Christian and loyalist areas long-besieged
by Islamist forces.

In November 2013, US-Iran rapprochement went ahead, horrifying
Saudi Arabia. And so we enter 2014 with Iran ascendant once again. Without military
support from the US, the rebels cannot achieve a military victory. Though
fighting will subside, terrorism will continue for many years yet, especially
if the rebels believe the West supports their cause.

As Assad consolidates his gains and secures his territory, al-Qaeda
elements are changing tack and concentrating on carving out a base of
operations in the Kurd and Christian dominated lands of north-eastern Syria and
in the hot-bed of Sunni resistance that is Anbar Province, western Iraq.

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Elizabeth Kendal
is an international religious liberty analyst and prayer advocate. She is the Director of Advocacy at Christian Faith and Freedom (Canberra) and
an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Islam and Other
Faiths (CSIOF) at Melbourne School of Theology (MST). Her book -- Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today(Deror Books, Dec 2012) -- applies a Biblical
response to suffering and persecution to today's realities.

[1] Some analysts maintain that the Iranian regime is belligerent towards Israel primarily for political purposes.
Historically, Iran has been allied to Israel against Sunni Arab aggression. And
while the Saudis maintain peace with Israel and friendship with the West, that
also is primarily for political purposes -- and all the while they are spreading
their toxic Wahhabi ideology worldwide and funding international Islamic jihad.
Morsi's pro-Iran leaning was one reason why the Saudi regime backed the 3 July
2013 military coup in Egypt that ousted him from the presidency and the MB from
power. A rapprochement between Gaza's Hamas and Iran is underway as I write.

[2]
The Sunnis allied with the Nazi during WWII. After the war, the French
empowered the minorities so as to keep the Sunnis in check.

[3]
Had the Assad regime fallen, the Iranians would have done all in their power to
draw the Syrian MB and al-Qaeda elements into the Iranian axis; and it probably
wouldn't have been too difficult at all.